Chapter 14
After he dropped me off at my classroom, he slung his backpack over one shoulder and headed the other way, looking every bit like a student himself. I only found out later that he actually was in school. He had handed all of Galaxy Auto Repair’s day-to-day business over to his friend Brother Hao, and spent every day in the repeaters’ class on the west campus, preparing to take the college entrance exam.
On the way home I deliberately asked him, “Don’t tell me you went back to repeat a year just to get close to me?”
He rolled his eyes. “Get close to you for what? It’s not like I’m tired of living.”
He said my dad was his great benefactor. One time my dad saw him reading a book and suggested he go back to school. He was already twenty-one, had been drifting around society for four years, and didn’t even meet the household registration requirements for Anzhou Middle School’s repeater class. My dad pulled strings to get him in, even fronted his tuition, giving him another shot at the college entrance exam.
When he said this, his usual rogue attitude faded. The corners of his eyes were faintly red.
Later, I asked around among the repeater class students and found out that Bai Zifan was actually solidly in the top thirty of the entire grade. He was especially good at math-on the last monthly exam, there was a final killer problem, and he was the only one in the whole school who got it right.
I was stunned, and admired Bai Zifan even more.
On Saturday afternoons, the school gave us a half day off. That day he suddenly showed up on his motorcycle to pick me up. He stopped with one foot on the ground, took off his helmet, and told me to get on the back.
“Little Penguin, hop on!” There seemed to be some kind of surprise hidden in his smile.
The motorcycle wove through a maze of alleys before finally stopping in front of a bar with a “Closed” sign hanging on the door.
He opened an inconspicuous little door, and we followed the flickering colored lights down a staircase. Inside, it was like another world-huge space, a stage, instruments, a piano.
Even though the basement was dim and the air still held the stale mix of last night’s smoke and alcohol, the moment I saw that small stage, my eyes lit up.
Leaning against the doorframe, he curled his lips in a proud grin. “A buddy of mine owns the place. It only opens at night. During the day, you guys can come here and perform.”
“That’s amazing!” I threw myself at him and hugged him, excited. “So you big bad guy actually have a good side!”
“On one condition-” He suddenly grew serious and reached out to pinch my cheek. “You’re not allowed to skip class and cause trouble for me anymore.”
I nodded hard.
When our club performed here, there were only a dozen or so people scattered in the audience. Bai Zifan and a few of his brothers from the auto shop all came; they’d even changed into clean clothes on purpose.
There weren’t many people, but that didn’t dampen our enthusiasm at all. Everyone threw themselves into it, as if we were standing on a world-class stage.
I wore a long red dress covered in sequins, and in the sound of the piano I felt like I was glowing.
In the audience, some people yawned, some played on their phones, some chatted and laughed. Only Bai Zifan gave me serious encouragement when the performance ended: “Little Penguin, you’re definitely going to stand on a bigger stage someday.”
I noticed they all had little injuries-bruised noses, swollen faces-so I asked Brother Hao what had happened. Brother Hao said that Bai Zifan had taken them to teach a lesson to that group of punks hanging around near the Old Town Theater and beat them up pretty badly.
Brother Hao said that’s just how Bai Zifan was-he couldn’t swallow any grievance. No one was allowed to bully his people; he always paid it back with interest.
I was shocked and moved at the same time, and secretly thought to myself, so does that mean…I’m one of his people now?